FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried made it through one week of Bahamas prison before agreeing to extradition to the U.S. and house arrest. It’s no wonder: His parents live in a beautiful, historic 1-acre home—and it has a pool.
Bankman-Fried will be back at the home he grew up in, a house in the middle of Stanford’s campus, according to federal political filings that disclose the address. He will remain under house arrest, but can leave for substance use treatment, exercise and mental health purposes.
According to a 2013 rental listing, the home features expansive windows looking out onto a verdant backyard, which has a swimming pool. Inside, the home features hardwood floors, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and a grand piano.
It’s idyllic: When The Standard visited the house in November, they found the home tucked away on a cul-de-sac with a rural, leafy feel that is a signature of Stanford’s campus. The house is near the Dish, a nature trail where Steve Jobs held walking meetings.
The 3,000-square-foot home, which has been documented by the Stanford Historical Society, is large for Palo Alto standards, where the average home sales price sells for $3.3 million yet measures a comparatively small 1,874 square feet. Bankman-Fried’s parents acquired the home in 1991, according to Santa Clara County property records.
Bankman-Fried won’t be the only person to have been home-ridden there. In 1958, philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine was a visiting fellow at Stanford who got hepatitis. In his autobiography, he recounts “convalescing by the pool” and finishing arguably his most important work, Word and Object.
“The spacious lawn focused upon a little pool that was choked with tall pampas grass and shaded by a clumb of redwoods,” he wrote.
Stanford’s Campus Gets Media Circus for Christmas
Fancy as it is, the Bankman-Fried household sits just feet from undergraduate residences, including its closest neighbor, the quirky “naked, pagan and vegan” dorm Synergy. Its prime location nestles it just behind the university’s Fraternity Row, and across the street from the president’s mansion.
But given the crypto founder’s public notoriety, a media circus may descend upon the family’s home. If that’s the case, the close proximity of the Bankman-Fried’s home to student residences may cause a security headache for the already beleaguered university.
A Stanford spokesperson said that the university’s department of public safety will add temporary security in the neighborhood surrounding the home, and that a few roads will be closed nearby.
No students are expected to be on campus when Bankman-Fried will presumably arrive at his family home. Student residences will be closed for winter break until Jan. 7.
Bankman-Fried was released from federal custody by a Manhattan court Thursday, on a record $250 million bail. The Bay Area native was arrested in the Bahamas earlier in December, and extradited to the United States Wednesday. He faces a slew of fraud charges, filed by multiple federal entities.